Northeast: My Absurd Woman

Chapter 69 Women Who Don't Understand Menstruation

Zhang Kaiju was flustered, his eyes darting around anxiously as he tried to appease Yang Wuni.

They brought out their own history of seven hundred years of grain and eight hundred years of chaff.

They wanted Zhang Changyao to persuade Yang Wuni so that he could successfully drive the carriage away.

"Wu Ni, what your father said is true. Back when our family was still landlords, your father was already handling livestock."

We can stay here in the hospital without worry. We can leave the chestnut horse and the foal to Dad and Aunt Xiulan.

By the time you recover and are discharged from the hospital, the foal will be half a person's height.

Zhang Changyao had no suspicion of his father and his words were full of trust.

"Dad, Aunt Xiulan, the chestnut horse wants to eat grass that's been chopped up a bit."

It has few teeth left and can't bite corn stalks.

Chop the grass and soak it in hot cornmeal water beforehand.

You can get the corn and flour from my house; don't be stingy with them.

The foal gets cold at night, so please put it on the floor in my house and put some dry corn husks on it.

Yang Wuni knew she couldn't change Zhang Changyao and Zhang Kaiju's decision, so she could only give them repeated instructions.

"Wu Ni, don't worry, your Aunt Xiu Lan is more thoughtful than you are."

I'll put this little pony under the floorboards of your dad's and my house.

"How about Aunt Xiulan put it on the kang (heated brick bed) and let it sleep in the same quilt as me?"

Zhao Xiulan patted Yang Wuni's leg repeatedly, making all sorts of unfounded promises.

"Wu Ni, let's hurry to the clinic, there will be a lot of people and we'll have to wait in line."

Zhang Changyao grabbed Yang Wuni's hand, turned her head, and stopped her from talking endlessly.

There were hardly any patients in the clinic; the empty corridors were so quiet you could hear your own heartbeat.

"Zhang Changyao, I'm a little scared. I've heard that people die here during the day and it's haunted at night?"

Yang Wuni had never been to the health center; everything she said was just what Yang Dianjun and Du Qiu had told her to scare her.

"Wu Ni, people die everywhere. People have died in every house in the village."

The living are afraid of the dead, and a stupid dog chases birds. If the dead could really turn into ghosts and scare people, what would be the point of living?

Everyone died, and then they all became ghosts, scaring each other.

Zhang Changyao pulled Yang Wuni out from behind him and held her hand.

Go to Dr. Qiu's office at the end of the corridor to find her.

"Young man, is this your wife?"

Dr. Qiu heard footsteps coming in and looked up.

She knew Zhang Changyao, so she took the initiative to greet him.

"Dr. Qiu, I've finished my medicine, and my belly has shrunk a little."

Zhang Changyao pulled Yang Wuni over and lifted her belly to show Doctor Qiu.

"Hmm! It's quite soft; I guess some of the bugs inside have been expelled."

"I'll go make the arrangements now. You all wait for me here." Dr. Qiu pushed open the door and went out.

"Zhang Changyao, tell the doctor that you can't cut open the abdomen."

"Just cut it open, and the baby will come out."

Yang Wuni pulled down her clothes to cover her stomach.

"No surgery needed, Dr. Qiu said your illness can be treated with medication."

Zhang Changyao put his arm around Yang Wuni and stroked her head to comfort her.

"You two go to the ward with Nurse Zhang. I'll come over in a bit to examine you."

"If we cooperate well, your belly will be just like a normal person's in a few days."

Dr. Qiu returned to his seat and pointed to the short, plump woman who had followed him in.

Nurse Zhang had a slight smile on her chubby face, with delicate eyebrows, big eyes, red lips, and white teeth.

"What's your name?" Nurse Zhang asked Yang Wuni after looking her up and down.

"Yang Wuni." Yang Wuni answered quickly, making Nurse Zhang grin from ear to ear.

"Yang Wuni, come with me, let's go to the ward."

Nurse Zhang walked in front, with Yang Wuni and Zhang Changyao following behind her.

"Yang Wuni, this is your bed."

Several people entered the ward. Nurse Zhang pointed to the bed by the door and told Yang Wuni, then went out.

"Zhang Changyao, this room smells really good."

This bed is really something else; look how white the bedding is!

Seeing that there were no outsiders in the room, Yang Wuni sat down on the bed.

I bobbed my bottom, feeling the softness of the double-layered straw curtains under the bed.

I placed my hand on the bed sheet and quickly picked it up, afraid of getting the white sheet dirty.

"Wu Ni, lie down for a while. I'll go to the granary and deliver the donkey meat to Wang Jianjie. If I carry it any longer, it'll go bad."

Zhang Changyao opened the package of donkey meat from his shirt pocket and took a look.

"Go on! Go on! Don't forget to tell them to call us if they need any work."

After Zhang Changyao left, Yang Wuni obediently lay down on the pillow, then quickly sat up again.

I touched my hair to check for dust, and only after confirming it was clean did I dare to lie down again.

"Yang Wuni, tell me about what happened before your belly got big."

Besides your regular meals, what other things did you eat that were different from what others ate?

Dr. Qiu entered the ward with paper and pen and sat on the bed opposite Yang Wuni.

"Dr. Qiu, do you start telling stories from when I was a child?"

Yang Wuni sat up and put her legs up on the edge of the bed.

He straightened up respectfully and asked Doctor Qiu the question word by word.

"Alright, you can start from when you were a child and talk about it until now." Dr. Qiu nodded patiently.

"Dr. Qiu, then I'll start from when my mother died."

When my mother was alive, I still ate with my family.

"Cough, cough..."

Yang Wuni cleared her throat, squinted her eyes and pondered for a moment before speaking.

"I remember that after I was five years old, I hardly ate any meals."

I was young then, and when spring was warm, I would eat the green grass sprouts that grew in the ground.

When it gets warmer, we'll dig up sow thistle and dandelion to eat.

When other people's chicks lay eggs, I steal the eggs to eat.

As soon as the crops sprouted, they ate elm seeds and sour fruit from the ground.

As they grew older, they followed behind Xiao Ge and Du Qiu Ge.

We eat roasted grasshoppers, roasted big-eyed thieves, roasted rats, and roasted sparrows.

Roasted worms, roasted old hens and chicks from someone else's house.

Roast a blind man's pestle, roast a wild dog, roast a dead pig's lamb, roast a dead cat, roast potatoes, roast fish...

Yang Wuni rattled off an uncountable number of roasted foods.

"Yang Wuni, are all the things you mentioned that are meant to be grilled cooked through?"

Dr. Qiu felt nauseous listening to this, and when she stopped, he quickly asked her.

"They're cooked! They were all grilled by Brother Xiao and Brother Du Qiu. They smell amazing!" Yang Wuni nodded vigorously.

"So you grew up eating these things?"

A look of relief appeared on Dr. Qiu's face.

"Well... not all of them. It seems like it was after I turned fifteen that I got my period, and it got all over my pants and the floor."

Xiao Ge and Du Qiu Ge wouldn't let me follow behind them.

I didn't know what menstruation was either, and I thought I had cut something.

I went back and told my dad, and he beat me up and scolded me for causing him trouble.

In the end, my sister-in-law made me a fake bra.